Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combination of one or more female RJ connector(s) and a female flash card connector in a common housing that can be mounted to a PCB. The female RJ connector(s) and the female flash card connector can be mounted one atop of the other or side by side in the common housing which can include shielding.
Description of Related Art
Modular connectors are commonly used for telephone systems, data networks, and low-speed serial connections. These connectors are inexpensive, relatively simple to terminate, and easy to plug and unplug. A modular connector typically has a clear, plastic body with the male plug including a tab for locking the male plug and female jack together when connected. In the vernacular used by the technology industry, these modular connectors are called “RJ” connectors. This is technically inaccurate, but the naming convention is widely used. RJ is an acronym for Registered Jack, which is part of a coding system developed in the 1970s by AT&T to classify telephone services and equipment. The coding system, called the Universal Service Order Code (USOC), used designations that began with the letters RJ to denote the capabilities of jacks in a building, and how they should be wired in order to connect to the public phone network.
A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized physical network interface, both jack construction and wiring pattern, for connecting telecommunications or data equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance carrier. The standard designs for these connectors and their wiring are named RJ11, RJ14, RJ21, RJ45, RJ48, etc. Many of these interface standards are commonly used in North America, though some interfaces are used world-wide.
A typical RJ connector includes an RJ socket housing (a.k.a. a female RJ electrical connector or jack) for insertion of an RJ male plug (a.k.a. a male RJ electrical connector) to form an electrical connection. RJ socket housings are available in many configurations including one port, multiple ports in a horizontal row, and stacked rows of RJ connectors.
MicroSD is a small removable flash memory card used mostly with mobile phones, tablets, laptop computers, and desktop computers to store data. It is the smallest flash memory card currently on the market. It measures just 5 mm×11 mm×0.7 mm making it ideal for mobile phone and tablet computer use. When users want to insert a MicroSD card into a MicroSD card connector they simply slide the MicroSD card into the MicroSD female flash card connector opening where the MicroSD card locks into place.
Although MicroSD cards are actually very small they can store large amounts of data. MicroSD cards are available with storage capacities ranging from 128 MB up to 8 GB, using a storage density of 34 GB/cm3. There are different formats on MicroSD cards to store data, including an SDHC format.
SDHC stands for Secure Digital High Capacity. MicroSD cards formatted in the SDHC format provide higher storage capacity versus the same form factor as a normal MicroSD (or Secured Digital (SD)) card. SDHC cards first appeared in 2006. SDHC cards are generally formatted with the Fat32 file system. SDHC cards have a fixed sector size of 512 bytes.
The SD Card Association (SDA) has placed a limit of 32 GB on SDHC capacity, while technically speaking SDHC cards could support up to 2 terabytes (TB) of storage. SDHC cards emerging onto the market created considerable consumer confusion as normal SD cards, such as MicroSD cards, are used for many portable devices including digital cameras, camcorders, game systems, MP3 players and other electronic devices. SDHC cards are also graded by speed in three classes. Generally speaking, Class 2 offers 2 MB/s, Class 4 offers 4 MB/s and Class 6 offers 6 MB/s.